If banks are not accepting even more in taxpayer funds and are making profits legitimately, I doubt anyone will have a problem with big bonuses.

It will be challenging however after what is anticipated to be fairly large profit reports from a few of the larger financial institutions. That has ramifications for stirring up the Main/Wall Street debate, compensation restrictions by Congress (and fanning the flames of housing demand in the NYC metro area).

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home-price index, a closely watched gauge of U.S. home prices, rose 1.6% in July from June in the third straight monthly increase, but prices remain below year-earlier levels.

For the sixteenth straight month, no area in the 20-city index posted a year-over-year price gain. That put nationwide prices at levels seen in 2003.

“These figures continue to support an indication of stabilization in national real estate values,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s. “But we do need to be cautious in coming months to assess whether the housing market will weather the expiration of the Federal First-Time Buyer’s Tax Credit in November, anticipated higher unemployment rates and a possible increase in foreclosures.”

It is nice to see the appraisal process move front and center after being on the back burner for the past 7 years during the credit bubble. The appraisal process in mortgage lending is like politics and making sausage – its not pretty when you look at it up close (except for my photo, of course).

Vivian Toy pens a great article which talks about the disconnect between the ideals of the appraisal profession and what is being forced on the profession by the lending community and regulators in this weekend’s real estate section cover story called New York Appraisals Get Shortchanged.

And without a stockpile of comparable sales for reference, Mr. Miller said, “you have to really know the local market, so you can go beyond the raw sales data and use all the subjective factors you can to really tell the story about a property.”

The potential pitfalls are not exclusive to New York. “The least qualified and least experienced people are doing appraisals across the country,” said Jim Amorin, the president of the Appraisal Institute, a national trade group that represents 26,000 appraisers. He estimated that appraisal management companies now handle about 90 percent of the appraisal market, up from about 30 percent before May 1.

Mr. Amorin said he had heard of appraisers in California who travel 150 to 200 miles to do an appraisal.

It’s hard to believe that they could still be in their geographically competent area, he said. And in Manhattan it would be even harder if you have someone coming in from the suburbs, since things can be vastly different from one side of the street to another.

When you commoditize the appraisal profession as appraisal management companies do, you really get poor quality at a higher cost. The costs are measured in risk exposure, lost revenue from killing transactions that shouldn’t be, and AMC fees are often higher (remember the appraiser only gets about half of the total appraisal fee).

The irony here is that many of the appraisers who were the source of overvaluation during the boom times – cranking out a high volume of reports, mainly for mortgage brokers – are now getting most of the work through appraisal management companies. They are undervaluing because they are unfamiliar with the markets they appraise in and think the lenders want them to be low (they probably do). Remember that in either the high or low scenario, its all about making their clients happy – in other words – insanity continues to be pervasive in mortgage lending…but now it is costing the consumer directly.

The New York Times ran an A1 (page one) story back in August called “In Appraisal Shift, Lenders Gain Power and Critics.” Which talked about how good appraisers are being forced out of business because of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct agreement between NY AG Andrew Cuomo and Fannie Mae. Banks have all the power now and they are showing that they don’t understand the problem at hand.

Sales of new one-family houses in August 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 429,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 0.7 percent (Â±16.2%) above the revised July rate of 426,000, but is 3.4 percent (Â±13.3%) below the August 2008 estimate of 444,000.

August’s sales pace was 4.3% below the same month a year earlier. Last year ended with 485,000 new homes sold, the worst year for new-home sales since 1982 and the third-worst year since the federal government began tracking the data in 1963. New-home sales peaked in 2005 at 1.23 million units.

Builders also have scaled back construction dramatically, cutting the inventory of new homes to a 7.3-month supply, down 34% from 11.1 months a year earlier. The reduction marks a return to a more normal market: a roughly six-month supply is the historical norm.

Despite a record drop in prices, sales of new homes flattened out in August after four months of strong increases, the Commerce Department estimated Friday. Sales of new homes rose a statistically insignificant 0.7% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 429,000 from a downwardly revised 426,000 in July, which was previously reported as 433,000. Sales were down 3.4% from a year earlier, but were up 30% from the low in January. Through the first eight months of 2009, sales were down 28% compared with the same period a year ago.

Bottom line is that new construction is competing with rising foreclosures and faces significant challenges with financing availability. New home sales data doesn’t include contract rescissions either so I have always felt it is very inconsistent (a lot more positive) than national home builders actual numbers.

The single largest impediment to a recovery in the housing market is the large
number of loans that are either in delinquent status or in foreclosure that are
destined to liquidate. This creates a huge shadow inventory. We estimate this
housing overhang at 7 million units, 135% of a full year of existing home sales.
We look at the impact on a number of local markets, then look to the causes
of the overhang: (1) transition rates are high, (2) cure rates are low and (3)
loans are taking longer to liquidate. We are concerned that, in light of this
housing overhang, the stabilization we have seen in home prices the last few
months is temporary.

Amherst was the key source for the informative “Mortgage Meltdown” story back in December on 60 Minutes. They teamed up with investment fund manager Whitney Tilson. The 60 Minutes segment is in my earlier post but I also inserted it below.

Larry has taken a different route in bringing real estate and other key topics into the fold. His journal is contrarian to current convention by presenting high quality long form articles which also provide possible solutions to the issues discussed.

interviewed me today on her new show “The Hays Advantage” M-F 1-3pm EST and dubbed FHFA (Foo-FA). That works for me.

While it is encouraging news that the bottom isn’t falling out of the housing market, this index basically reflects the low to mid layers of the housing market since it is based on data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who only handle conforming mortgage products. Currently this means mortgages of $417,000 or less in most of the country and $729,750 in the handful of “high priced” housing markets. That is the market that is recovering first since it has a secondary investor market for bamnks to sell their paper too and ifree up their capital.

I find it a bit troublesome that, as we hang on the edge of our seats each month, the revisions for prior releases are all over the map. Last month, the month over month was 0.5% (6% annual) which was revised downward to 0.1% (1.2% annual). Still, the news is better than its been.

If you are a believer in trend lines, the following chart suggests we have about 10% more to go until the market reaches the trend broken circa 2001. That means that the sideways motion we are experiencing would have to change for the worse over the next several years. Factors could include more foreclosures, rising mortgage rates, elimination of first time home buyers tax credit, etc. While I am concerned, thats more bad karma than I can process.

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About Jonathan Miller

Jonathan Miller is President and CEO of Miller Samuel Inc., a real estate appraisal and consulting firm he co-founded in 1986. He is a state-certified real estate appraiser in New York and Connecticut, performing court testimony as an expert witness in various local, state and federal courts. He holds the Counselors of Real Estate (CRE) and Certified Relocation Professional (CRP) designations. He is an Appraiser “A” Member of the Real Estate Board of New York and a member of Relocation Appraisers and Consultants, Inc.Learn More...

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“His prescient 2012 declaration that “luxury real estate is the new global currency” was repeated as gospel...”–New York Post

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I’ve been following Dan Gershburg‘s Twitter handle for quite a while and found it to be a great resource for pretty much everything. He’s a real estate attorney and we got to know each other a little bit over the… Read More